Travel Blog

App Lets Kids Explore the Globe with a Flick of the Finger

Blog Post

What's the perfect gift for young, inquisitive, would-be travelers? The Barefoot World Atlas App, available for iPad. The result of a collaboration between Barefoot Books and Touch Press, a popular app developer, the app lets your little one explore the globe with a flick of the finger.

Fully compatible on all iPad generations, the World Atlas App is based on The Barefoot World Atlas, a bestselling hardback atlas written by the popular UK geographer Nick Crane, who also narrates the app's trove of facts, and illustrated by David Dean, who similarly created the animated illustrations for the book's technological sibling. It also features live country facts, including weather, and a series of 3D rotations of historical objects from the Royal Geographic Society.

The app has already garnered huge praise from the press, both in the UK and in the US, and for good reason: It gives kids the chance to explore and pique their curiosity by exploring their most random curiosities about different cultures, continents, and climates. All they have to do is spin the globe, pick from one of the colorful dancing icons, and watch as the information pours out. Featured as an Apple App of the Week, its $7.99 price tag will be well worth the education—and fun—that it provides.

Guest blogger Kirsten Stamn is a New YorK City-based freelance writer and regular TravelandLeisure.com contributor.